Previous Next

What has crystalline substance with a hardness of seven got in common with Firebird's latest game? Simple, they both have the same name. Quartz is basically a scrolling shoot-'em-up set inside a crystalline structure rather than the more conventional outer-space scenario.

Much of the action takes place in the crystalline lattice which plays very similarly to the old arcade classic Asteroids. Your ship sits in the centre of the screen and it scrolls in any of eight directions as you fly around the lattice. Hadrons are large spheres in the colours red, blue and yellow which fragment when you shoot them to form quarks. Blasting a quark causes it to release short-lived neutrinos which you have to collect. Don't touch the quarks or hadrons though because valuable energy will be grained from your ship.

To the right of the screen are three tubes into which collected neutrinos are stored. When all these have been filled to the top you can trade them for a "power-up" to improve your chances of survivial. Extras range from bombs and destructive flame weapons to armour and ship repairs. Only three weapons may be fitted to your ship so you must choose carefully.

The path to the nucleus is not a standard route, it varies from lattice to lattice. Scrolling shoot-'em-ups is what they all are, but they vary in the direction of the scroll; left, right, up or down.

Deep within the crystal structure lurks the nucleus, rotating away and just asking to be obliterated. So off you go to send it for a final, destructive spin. No nucleus in its right mind would sit there undefended and so you have to avoid hordes of sub-atomic particles and other deadly traps to reach the core. Destroy the nucleus and you can start work on another lattice.

Music is excellent and so are the sound effects. Both have been done by Wally Beben. The parallax scrolling is across all eight directions and the sprites are both detailed and colourful. A lot of work went into the sound and appearance of Quartz and it shows.

Quartz is a good mixture of game styles that work together to produce a very addictive game which should keep you blasting away for many a long hour. Strap on weapons are always a good thing to help keep you interested in a game and strategy comes into play in choosing which weapons with which to equip yourself.